Sunday, February 11,De Kloveniersdoelen is dominated by American Folk with Johnny Dowd and Melle de Boer .Johnny Dowd is known as one of the last real American folk artists.Although it is difficult to stick a label to his music, he is often compared to Tom Waits, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Captain Beefheart.Melle de Boer has adopted the American country style and has given it its own twist.Here he started in 1999 with his former band Smutfish.De Boer will release a new album in 2018.The music of both men is known as deeply emotional, bilious and experimental.It promises to be a violent afternoon in Middelburg!

Johnny Dowd and Melle de Boer will perform a concert in the Kloveniersdoelen on Sunday 11 February 2018. American traditionals: Johnny and Melle will bring them almost unrecognizable. Not quaint, but as they should sound now, current, full of soul, electricity and necessity. Tickets: € 12, –

When two people dig long enough, they eventually meet each other. Johnny Dowd and Melle de Boer have been digging tunnels in the human soul for years. As Orpheusen they descend into the underworld and with danger to their own lives bring out the most beautiful things. Now those tunnels come together.

Johnny Dowd

Johny Dowd has been known as one of the last remaining real folk-originals. ‘Dowd may not be in the form, but in spirit a late follower of the pre-war blues singers’ NRC 2001. Johnny Dowd (born March 29, 1948 in Fort Worth, Texas) is an American alto country musician from Ithaca, New York. Typical for his style are experimental, noisy pauses in his songs and strong gothic (in the sense of dark and sombre) elements in the songs and in music. There is also a strong undercurrent of black humor and the absurdity in his work. As a singer-songwriter his music is compared with the music of Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Captain Beefheart.

Melle de Boer

Since 2001 Melle has been busy interpreting his ‘American’ music. His band Smutfish, founded in 1999, has built up an extensive body of work since the debut album ‘Lawnmower Mind’ and recorded 5 CDs at various record companies. Through performances at, among others, Noorderslag, SXSW in Austin, Texas, the Popkomm in Berlin and the Reeperbahn festival in Hamburg, the band has toured a lot through the Netherlands and Europe. Also noteworthy is the tour with Daniel Johnston in 2007 and 2008. In 2015 the release of the album “Trouble” took place at the leading Dutch label Excelsior Recordings. Melle will release a new solo album in early 2018.

When Melle de Boer and Johnny Dowd entered the stage of the small hall January 27, they have only played together twice before on their Going Down the Road Feeling Bad Tour. Together they form an occasional combination, but a winning one. Obviously, Dowd, the cross-country American, is the main program and De Boer is supporting, but at the end of the show they are going to sing some traditional songs like Dowd recently released on his album Twinkle, Twinkle. Expect the unexpected, we know that Dowd slowly. Nothing will be as it appears on paper.

Striking duo with double bill
When Sugar Mountain Melle de Boer speaks for some additional explanation, he has just finished his first joint show with Johnny Dowd. That took place in Altstadt in Eindhoven ‘Rock City’. “That was great,” he still enjoys. “It was the first time there for me.” What do we have to imagine at these duo shows? The combination of ‘Melle the easy’ and ‘Johnny the difficult’ alone is remarkable enough. And then we are not talking about their music, but rather about their reputations on the human level. How do those two come together, apart from the fact that Melle designed the artwork for Johnny’s previous album Execute American Folklore?

Experimental folk turned inside out
Before we let Melle answer that question, we go back to Monday, December 4, when colleague singer-songwriter Jim White performed at the same location. In one of his stories that evening, he said that his career and that of Johnny Dowd, whom he admired, always went more or less parallel. They both made their debut about the end of the nineties with a similarly turned-out experimental folk repertoire. When, in that period, after his own show at SXSW in Austin, Texas, he hurried to Dowd’s show and afterwards agreed to address him, he got the wind from the front. ‘Oh you’re that dude who is imitating me?’ He spoke viciously. At least it does not matter that Dowd is a difficult person. Or not?

Not difficult, but a strong appearance
Melle says that image laughing at: “No, he is not a difficult man to work with. But of course he has a very strong appearance. “The joint part of the show with squeaky and creaking electronic performances of well-known folk songs has not been studied before. “I’m not really into the rehearsal space, honestly,” Melle admits from whom the idea for this double bill comes. Let us tell you now how this went, and where the guts came from to ask the question. Melle stays very calm. “I just asked him if we could play together. He then replied: “That would be more fun than a barrel or monkeys.” I had to let those words work on me. Then I understood that that is his expression to say that it was good.”

For daredevils
Prepare yourself for the craziest. Some of those traditionals have been put in an absolutely unrecognizable jacket. It forms almost food for a fun pop quiz. In reality it is about modern interpretations of someone who understands the folk idiom better than anyone else. Melle de Boer happily assists Johnny Dowd on his quest for the ultimate renditions. That requires ears that can take a beating. But that is not asking too much? Not for purists. For daredevils!

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